Everyday Systems

I know three plates are the maximum, but are they also the minimum? What if you're not particularly hungry one day, or you get up really late, or fall asleep early?

What if (let's call a spade a spade) you've binged or overeaten the day before, and you're just too nauseated to eat?

Judy

Hi Judy,

The maximum should be the minimum. If you start compensating for messing up today with extra restrictions tomorrow, you'll REALLY start binging. Binging isn't just eating too much -- it's followed (and prompted by) a deprivation or purge. It's a cycle. Stop the deprivation and the binging will stop too. The real diet you're on when you "compensate" like this is the yo-yo diet -- and we know where that leads.

You want regularity. A moderate, sustainable, consistent minimum level of compliance. Not heroics one day and abject failure the next -- that's the status quo that most of us having been doing for years to horrible effect. I would strongly recommend using the online Habit Calender or a paper calendar "habit traffic light" to provide some structure for this at least in the beginning. This is even better than keeping track of consecutive successes because it makes allowances for the occasional failure while still discouraging them (a little red looks bad, but it's not the end of the world in a sea of green). If you are worried that failures will turn into routs, resolve to describe or "confess" details about each failure here or on your paper calendar (I'm going to be adding a "notes" feature to the online HabitCal soon). That gives you incentive to keep them minimal without additional overhead. Finally, if you are worried about going nuts on S-days, make them "single S" days -- giving yourself one "S-event" each S-day and no more. I don't recommend this lightly, I think it's usually best to keep S-days completely free, but it is a reasonable, moderate, vanilla No-s compatible option if you feel you need more structure.

Reinhard